


afraid

by trashcanbarbie



Series: unconnected klaroline drabbles [1]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson, F/M, Klaus - Freeform, Klaus Mikaelson Has A Heart, Post-Season/Series 08 Finale, Vampire Caroline Forbes, Welllll, Werewolf Bites, i just fuck with the timeline, in a weird way, just klaus, kinda prosey, melodramatic af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28252059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashcanbarbie/pseuds/trashcanbarbie
Summary: “I fancy you,” he says at the party, full of other girls who are far prettier than plain prom queen Caroline. Caroline’s plain, by extension, next to Elena. Boring. Nothing like the others. Yet, he wants her. Klaus is rich and handsome, and he has an accent and a crooked grin, and it just seems to good to be true. She guesses the drawback is he's a murderer.Caroline’s not in a habit of believing boys, not since she's been fooled a few too many times by dickhead high school boys who don’t realize they are burning the earth in front of them. Later they will call her scorched earth and she will laugh and say, and all the better, Johnny.But she believes him, for some reason. Maybe it's because he calls her strong, beautiful, full of light (whatever that means). She’ll never really know, but she believes him. Maybe she's not adapted to boys like him, who are obvious about getting in her pants but at least pretend they love her first. None of those highschool boys ever did that. Maybe it's the looks, or the money, or the taboo of it.Maybe she just falls for it.OR,Klaus and Caroline. That's it send tweet
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson
Series: unconnected klaroline drabbles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2069625
Comments: 10
Kudos: 65





	afraid

This story is about a girl, who is never the center of attention, and a boy who makes her feel like that. 

This story is about a girl who will be seventeen forever, and a boy who is far, far older than that. 

—

“I fancy you,” he says at the party, full of other girls who are far prettier than plain prom queen Caroline. Caroline’s plain, by extension, next to Elena. Boring. Nothing like the others. Yet, he wants her. Klaus is rich and handsome, and he has an accent and a crooked grin, and it  just seems to good to be true. She guesses the drawback is he's a murderer. 

Caroline’s not in a habit of believing boys, not since she's  been fooled a few too many times by dickhead high school boys who don’t realize they are burning the earth in front of them . Later they will call her scorched earth and she will laugh and say,  _and all the better, Johnny._

But she believes him, for some reason.  Maybe it's because he calls her strong, beautiful, full of light (whatever that means). She’ll never  really know, but she believes him.  Maybe she's not adapted to boys like him, who are obvious about getting in her pants but at least pretend they love her first . None of those highschool boys ever did that.  Maybe it's the looks, or the money, or the taboo of it. 

Maybe she  just falls for it. 

—

Finally. Someone likes her like they like Elena.

— 

She’s got an aching in her chest; a big hollow aching that feels like watching birds take flight, jealous you can't be with them in the wind .  Like watching the horizon of a sea from somewhere you can't wait to leave, like a thousand other longing things, but it’s  just a dying girl in her childhood bedroom . 

Tyler's bite burns and burns and oh god, she gets the mercy killing thing now. 

Klaus is here, sitting, watching her. He hasn't healed her yet. Caroline thinks he will, but he hasn't yet. 

She doesn't know why. 

“I can't wait. Until I'm out there,” she confesses to him, her voice scratchy and rough. It’s out of the blue. They weren't even talking before. 

There's a moment when he doesn’t respond, and then he turns his head, looks across at her. “There?” He asks, attentive. He’s been  out there, C aroline so sure of that she could die, and she will . 

She smiles wide, and pictures it. Wine. (more than wine), getting her own apartment, dancing in the living room. Travel. Adult things. “In the world. As an  adult ,” she explains, stressing adults like it’s of any importance. He smiles, and he is about to say something when she interrupts him. “I worry, that's not enough. Not real. I've  Been fooled by TV and movies and the media to believe It's this magical wonderful place, being an adult.  Drinking on the couch with all the windows open in summer, doing whatever I want, going places, doing things .  Probably in love.”

Klaus grins at her, and says, “I'll let you in on a little secret. There  is a whole world out there, waiting for you. Great cities and art and music, genuine beauty. And you can have  all of it. You can have a thousand more birthdays. All you have to do is ask.”

Caroline’s dead heart constricts, and she wants it, she wants it so  badly she would die all over again, she would, in an instant . 

But she can't. She knows she can't. She’s got her home, and her mother and she — she’s only seventeen! She’s still only seventeen, even if she feels much older. She can't go, not now. 

Maybe she’s  just not admitting to herself she’s one of those boys chasing after Elena like lost dogs begging for scraps of affection, and it’s been that way before any Salvatores were in town . 

In the end, she asks for it. 

It's more  just to save her life, but Klaus knows that. She looks up at him as she drinks, hands grabbing him  greedily , and he lets her. he lets her keep drinking, even when she's  surely saved. 

—

Later, she will think she was afraid. 

She will always be seventeen. 

— 

“I like you too,” the girl says, a long time later. Too long.

He looks at her like she’s won some battle she didn't know she was fighting. “Finally, you admit it,” he smiles, kind of dopey. 

“The others won’t understand,” Caroline says and the boy’s face turns into something hard, because she thinks he has  been rejected too many times before .

“No,  I don't think they will,” he says back, and she reaches out, holds his hand. He holds her back. 

— 

“Let me have you, Caroline,” he whispers dark and hot into her ear, and she’s never felt so wanted, so desired, and it’s heady. 

She closes her eyes and whispers, “ Just once.  Just one night.”

He grins with success and kisses her hard. He draws back a moment later, holding her, “If that’s all I can get, Caroline.”

“We’ll see,” Caroline says back, and he laughs as he pushes her up against the wall.

Is this what Elena feels like?

—

The boy wants her back.

—

“I'd love you,” Caroline tells him,  quietly .  They’re in her room, again, forever, and they’re bent close together on her tiny single bed, both  nearly falling off, but neither of them moves, have moved for what seems like a century . She fits all the edges of him, under the curve of his chest, and him under the crook of her arm. 

He laughs at the irony and says  quietly , “I do, already.” 

“I know,” she tells him, looking as high as she can. She can only see the edge of his jaw, but she convinces herself it's as good as his eyes.

“Was it too obvious?” he asks her, dark voice heavy with mirth. One of his arms sweeps up, holding her  tightly , a thumb rubbing a small semicircle across her back.

She shrugs, feels the breath of him on her skin. “I liked the bracelet,” she smiles into his chest, and leans into him. Their legs tangled together. 

“Why don't you wear it, then?” he asks her, and if Caroline was any younger she’d think he  was hurt . 

“Some things are too hard to explain.”

— 

“I'm too afraid.”

He looks at her, and she looks at him, and the sun inches across her rug.  He’s laying facing the window he’d climbed through an hour before, and the sun is golden lemonade on his face, his beautiful face, and Caroline can taste the citrus when he kisses her .

“I know,” he says back, and he does. It’s dark outside now, but not quite. It’s a purple-pink-blue sky, with the birds flying past, starlings stamped in black against it.  Summer barbecues always ended like this, frozen ice blocks and kids laughing, but she’s not  being buckled into the car by her mother anymore . 

— 

A dozen years later, she's in Italy, the land of marble and oil paint and everything Klaus told her about. What she asked for. She’s staring up at the art of the Vatican, wondering when she’ll start to smoke and burn under God's holy touch. 

He strolls across the crowded corridor, coming to land on her shoulder, but he doesn't say anything, and for a moment it feels like afternoons in her room, warm silence between breaths . The hall fills and empties around them, but they stay, like rocks in the tide.

“Christ, that is some genuine beauty, isn’t it?” Caroline murmurs, so quiet only he could ever hear her, and he laughs, long and loud. 

—

“I'm not afraid anymore,” she tells him, and it is twilight dawn, or  maybe dusk, and the sea is loud on the rocks outside their open window . She can smell it, too. Seaweed, salt. Melted gelato. Suntan lotion.

He grins. “I know that, too.”

“One more night,” she begs him, and kisses the corner of his mouth.

“ Just one?” he asks her  quietly , turning into the space between their bodies. 

She kisses him again, sighs and presses even closer, “If that's all I can get,” she smiles  deviously , and she knows the answer .

He grins, slow and sharp, because they’ve traded places, they  really have “No, Caroline. I’d wager it’s not.” She wonders if he  really knew if it was always going to turn out this way, or if he  just thought,  probably . 

She throws her head back and laughs, and he kisses down her throat, and keeps going. 

—

The girl is still seventeen, but she doesn't care about Elena Gilbert anymore, and the boy is still much older, but that never matters, and it doesn't now . 

He was right. They get more than one night. 

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i had so much fun with this, so i hope you enjoyed!
> 
> leave a comment/kudos if u want ;)
> 
> xx


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